Budgets & fees

Once your project has phases, the Budget page is where you shape the money side: your own fees, your consultants’ fees, and expenses. This page explains how those pieces fit together and how to add each one.

How a project’s fees fit together

Three numbers make up a project’s budget, all visible at the top of the Budget page:

• Service Fee — the sum of your firm’s own work across all fixed fee phases. It does not include hourly phases. You allocate this fee across phases by dollar amount or percent (see Phases & timeline).
• Consultant Fees — the total you’ll pay out to consultants on the project.
• Total Project Fees — the Service Fee and Consultant Fees combined.

You’ll also set a separate Direct Expenses budget for reimbursable costs. Work through the Budget page in order: firm services, then consultant fees, then direct expenses.

Add consultant fees

On the Consultant Fees tab, first set the overall consultant fee — the share of the budget going to consultants — then add each consultant. Add the consultant’s company (and contact) in your directory first; see Consultants.

Decide how each consultant is added, because it determines how they appear on invoices:

• Phase consultant — involved in specific phases only (for example, a structural engineer billing at the end of certain phases). Select the consultant type, then the company, then use + Add a phase to attach the phase(s) and budget(s).
• Project consultant — involved throughout the project. Select the consultant and company, then add the budget.

Either way, a markup pre-fills from your firm default (Settings → App defaults → Consultant markup) and can be adjusted per consultant. To change a consultant later, use the Edit icon; to remove one, use the X.

Two limits to know

A consultant already on an invoice can’t be edited or removed. And the same consultant can’t be added twice under the same type — to bill them separately, add them once as a project consultant and once as a phase consultant, or create distinct consultant types in Settings → App defaults.

Hourly consultants

Monograph doesn’t track consultants by the hour. To bill an hourly consultant, record their cost as an expense instead, then add it on the Expenses tab of the invoice builder.

Add an expense budget

The Direct Expenses tab is where you budget for reimbursable costs. Click Add budget and pick one method — you can’t mix them on a project:

• Single budget — one total covering all expenses. Best when you don’t need category-level detail.
• Multiple budgets — separate budgets per expense category. Only categories you add here will have a budget; expenses in other categories won’t be budgeted.

After choosing a method, enter the amounts on the Direct Expenses page; the total updates as you go. You can also set expense markups per category here — click the pencil icon to override the firm default from Settings.

Note

You need Edit project permissions to set expense budgets. Expense budgets aren’t added to older projects automatically — set them up per project. Once expenses have been invoiced, their budget can’t be deleted, and editing it may flag inconsistencies with existing invoices.

Auto-generate a budget from a contract

Note

Available on the Grow plan only.

Instead of entering everything by hand, you can have Monograph read a contract (or any PDF with the right details) and build the budget for you. When creating a project, choose Auto-generate from contract, upload the PDF, and click Create.

Monograph scans for total service fees, phases, phase budgets and fee types, phase timelines (in days), and roles and rates, then matches them to your app defaults. If the scan succeeds, click Review project details, check everything, adjust as needed, and click Save — then apply role recommendations to fill open roles.

Get a clean scan

List phases with names close to your app defaults, show each phase’s fee (fixed or capped), include a roles-and-rates table matching Staff → Roles & rates, and remove anything not part of this project’s budget.

Some things to expect: every role found is applied to every phase (roles aren’t split per phase), phases are treated as sequential and linked, and timelines use durations in days from the start date rather than specific dates. Consultants and consultant fees are not extracted — add those by hand. Always review the result; AI extraction isn’t perfect, and this step only runs at project creation.

Additional services and change orders

When a client approves work outside the original scope, add it in one of three ways depending on the terms. The same methods record a change order — just name the phase clearly (for example, Construction Administration — CO001).

1. Adjust an existing phase’s budget — best for small, straightforward increases. Edit the Service Fee, then raise the phase’s Budget. Use this when you’ll collect the full amount regardless of hours.

2. Add a new fixed fee phase — best when the extra work has a flat fee you want to invoice separately and track hours against. Add a new phase, set it to Fixed, and give it a budget; raise the Service Fee to include it.

3. Add a new hourly fee phase — best when you’ll bill by the hour up to a not-to-exceed amount. Add a new phase, set it to Hourly, and enter a Max Cap. It won’t roll up into the Total Fee, because the final amount isn’t guaranteed.

For the difference between fixed and hourly — and what a Max Cap does — see Phases & timeline.

Track square footage and construction cost

Recording a project’s size and construction cost gives you data to sharpen proposals and measure fee performance. First confirm your unit of measurement in Settings → Organization → Regional preferences (Feet or Meters), then open the project’s Details page, scroll to Project size, click Edit, and enter:

• Gross square feet (GSF) — total enclosed area measured to the exterior walls, including unusable space.
• Net square feet (NSF) — usable area only, measured from interior wall surfaces.
• Construction cost — the estimated total cost to build.

These feed the project’s Overview page and the per-square-foot and per-cost columns in the Projects revenue analytics.

Next steps

ConsultantsAdd consultants and collaborate with them in Monograph.

Phases & timelineFixed vs. hourly fees, linked phases, and statuses.

Create & plan a projectBuild a project from scratch, a template, or a contract.

Create & send an invoiceBill your client for fees and expenses.